


Final Choice

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Series: Obikin Week 2k18 [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Genre: Day 8, Force Ghost Angst, Heavy Angst, M/M, Obikin Week 2018, Quiet Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 13:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15414093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Darth Vader is dead. Obi-Wan decides to offer to teach him how to stay with Luke as a ghost... but understands Anakin might just want rest, instead.





	Final Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Obikin Week 2k18 Day 8: Author's Choice (I picked already-dead-Obi-Wan angst.)

 

Anakin, can you hear me?

I can teach you how to hold together your consciousness. How to stay.

But we don't have much time.

I need you to respond.

I...

It's not a bad thing to fade away, if that's what you want. If you're tired. It's... falling asleep, Anakin. I won't lie: staying is... staying is torment. It's not— it's pain. And I don't want torment for you. Somehow, I still want you to find peace.

I saw what you did for Luke.

I won't lie and tell you that it did not hurt to see the difference. I've spent twenty-three years wondering why you didn't fight for me and my family. I thought— I thought we had— I thought those nights together during the war meant you loved—

But you _did_ fight for Luke. Thank you. I don't know if I could have endured losing one more person. I know you didn't do it for me— I know. But just this once, you doing something for you didn't hurt me, so. Thank you.

I miss you, more than I—

I'm sorry for leaving you on Mustafar. I was a coward. I should have ended it, ended your pain. I shouldn't have left you to the flames.

I stopped shy of killing, like I do. But just that once, it didn't end up being a mercy.

I hate myself when I think of it. How numb I felt. I didn't do it because I hated you, or because I wanted you to suffer. I just... all that was left inside me was this agony of everything you had taken from me, and it was so loud, I couldn't feel your pain. I didn't even realize until later, much later, why I'd blacked out on Utapau. You'd— cut our bond, gave my place to—

It's why I thought you were dead. I was so convinced. Just going through the motions, trying to save who I could, and then I _saw._

And Anakin, I don't even know _why_ you did what you did, or how you _could._ And when I tried to ask, you were vacant and cold. You threatened me, you intended to take out even the very last of my family and I—

Something broke, Anakin. I don't think it ever came back.

I'm not sure I have compassion anymore, Anakin.

I left you to burn. And then, years later, I let myself die in front of Luke to gain a tactical position. And then I asked him to kill you. I think something broke in me, Anakin, back on Mustafar.

The Jedi I was would be horrified at the things I've done. The murders and the coldness and the...

Oh, gods, Anakin.

I'm not sure even I want to stay. Qui-Gon lingered for me, and then he was done with the heartache. He chose rest. I think I might follow him. I don't know that I want to linger, for more years alone with my thoughts, trying to find the place in me that isn't there anymore.

Something more than my body is dead.

You're not responding. Either you cannot hear me, or you do not want to stay with me.

I understand.

I can't imagine it's worth anything, as defiled and empty as I've become, but: I loved you, and I don't know if I'm capable of it anymore, but I think I love you still.

Goodbye, Anakin. Goodbye.

_**Master?** _

Anakin? Oh, gods. You can rest now, or I can teach you how—

 _**I'm sorry, Master. I know it's not enough, it will never** _ **be** _**enough, for what I did. Hell, I never forgave the Tuskens, but I** _ **became** _**your Tusken Raider, and I—** _

Anakin, _Luke._ Do you want to watch Luke?

_**Yes. Teach me, please.** _

It requires letting go, Anakin. A moment of pure surrender to the Force. Are you willing?

_**I have never.** _

I know. But I don't have another way, and your time is fading.

 _**Obi-Wan,** _ **Obi-Wan!** _**Help me,** _ **please** _**—** _

Just be, Anakin. Just... stop fighting it.

 _**I can't. I don't know how. I** _ **hate** _**letting go, being helpless.** _

A demand to stay conscious cannot be made of the Force, Anakin. The Force is refusing your demands. So just ask. It's not as cruel as you think it is. It's just life and death, Anakin. Change and the ebb and flow of the tide. Let it carry you. Float, Anakin. Just like I taught you in the pool, when you were afraid of the water. The flailing will drown you. Spread out your arms and legs, tip your head back, and breathe. I swear you will not sink. I _swear._ I don't know— I don't know if you will ever trust me, or if you ever really have, but for Luke, trust me just this once. I won't let you drown.

Yes. Just like that, oh, Anakin, you're almost there. Breathe—

Yes. Yes, you're here, oh, you're _here._

_**It hurts, Obi-Wan.** _

I know. It won't stop.

 _**Oh—** _ **Obi-Wan!** _**Please make it** _ **stop** _**—!** _

I cannot. I have no control over it.

_**What is happening to me?** _

You are one with the Force, but your self, your thoughts have remained together instead of scattering. It allows you to see the living, speak to them, even. But you are part of the Cosmic Force, now, and the Cosmic Force does not understand time in a linear way.

You are feeling— you are feeling all the moments of the past, as if they were now.

_**Obi-Wan, I cannot endure this, it is hell—** _

If you choose to fade away, you won't be able to come back.

_**Obi-Wan, I— oh gods, is this what you felt when— when I—** _

Yes.

_**And what you felt, all those years in the desert—** _

_**Obi-Wan? Are you crying? It feels like you're weeping, like your heart is torn in two.** _

It's alright, Anakin. It's nothing new. Look— Luke is going to light your pyre.

_**You didn't get a pyre. You didn't get Jedi rites. Why— why are you laughing?** _

There was no one to grant them to me. Anakin, all I have left, are those two precious lights down there. I don't even have Bail anymore. And Yoda plans to leave just as soon as he's made sure Luke is safe.

_**I am sorry, Obi-Wan.** _

Part of me forgives you in a heartbeat. But all of me— all of me will feel this pain until I scatter myself to the ends of the universe and give it all up entirely. It's been a lifetime of anguish, Anakin, and even in death, it's here. None of that goes away, with how much I want to just hug you right now, or with how much you are sorry.

It can never be taken back, and I don't know how long I can endure it. I— _Anakin!_

_**You said you wanted a hug, so here is one. As big a one, as tight a one as I can manage. I hate myself, Obi-Wan. I hate what I did to you. If you want to run away from me, I understand.** _

I don't want any more injury between us. I saw Maul again, and all I wanted was for the feud to end. For there to be just... quietness. No more hate, no more trying to hurt, no more running. He wouldn't allow it. I had to kill him, to keep Luke safe. Anakin, I don't want to run from you, I don't want to hurt you. I just want... I just want it to stop. I want peace.

_**I will never try to hurt you again. I swear it.** _

Just let me have a moment. I'm sorry, I—

 _ **You don't have to hide your tears. I won't hurt you for them. Not anymore.**_ _**You've been alone for so long... just... let me be here with you. Let yourself not be alone.**_ _**I'm listening to what you want, where Maul did not.**_

He wanted an end. Suicide by Jedi. He was so tired. _I'm_ so tired, Anakin. So tired of heartbreak. It's like my heart is hollowed out and weary, I don't think I have it in me anymore to love.

_**You love my son. You gave him everything you had to give, the painful pieces you scraped together after I stole everything you had. I don't understand how you could stand to look at him, after it all.** _

You couldn't take care of him. It was the last thing I could do for you. Make sure your son was safe. Even if that was ensuring there was a universe you _weren't_ alive in.

_**Maybe Luke resents you for that, but I do not. He should have killed me. It terrifies me how naive he is.** _

His naivete brought you back.

_**Someday it will burn him.** _

Leia will be there for him, when it does.

_**If he lets her.** _

Eventually, he will. She has all of your stubbornness, and he has all of Padmé's gentleness.

_**Thank you, Obi-Wan. Thank you from walking away from me on Mustafar.** _

_What?_

_**Padmé had so little time, you just barely got her to Polis Massa as it was, I can see it, I can** _ **feel** _**it—** _

Fifteen seconds and a saber toss wouldn't have—

_**Obi-Wan, fifteen seconds and a saber toss would have leveled you on the ground and left you near comatose, sobbing your heart out.** _

You don't know that.

 _**I do. I know regret has eaten you alive for over two decades, but I know the Living Force drew you back to Padmé, stayed your hand, because for Luke and Leia to** _ **live** _**you had to leave me to burn. And for that, for them to** _ **live,** _**I am willing that I burned.** _

Anakin.

_**Horrified and in awe both? What? Is my recklessness suddenly surprising?** _

I love you— if I still can, I mean. Though I—

_**You can, Obi-Wan. You are not incapable. You are wounded and limping, alone and struggling to breathe, but it was love for me that led you to leave me on Mustafar, even if you had no way of knowing it then. And it was love for me that kept you watching over a child it had to be agony to see and hear. It was love for him that led to your death, and love for him that drew you to offer me a place here, even knowing I might choose to brutalize what's left of your heart.** _

_**Your capacity to love is the one thing I didn't damage inside you. The one thing I did not steal.** _

Anakin...

 _ **I am speaking truth. It's time for you to stop hating yourself. To forgive yourself, just a little bit, for something that was never truly a sin on your part. You have always blamed yourself for my choices, haven't you? Twisted everything around to where you bear the blame? But I was an adult, Obi-Wan, and I made my decisions. It's time for you to stop bearing the weight of my guilt for me. It is mine to carry, and my shoulders are wide enough for it. Please, let me take it back.**_ _**You have suffered for me long enough.**_

 

* * *

 

_(It took time, but then a faint whisper reached Anakin, like a breath and a sob all in one)_

Alright.

 


End file.
